Work Text:
Leonardo didn’t know when his problems with sleep had started, but if he had to take a guess, he’d say when he was around 9 years old. Raphael, the oldest of them, was 10 and ready to venture to the topside for supply runs with their dad and because it was the first time they left during the night, leaving Donnie in charge as the second oldest.
And while they trusted Raphael as the responsible one, Leo had that thought in the back of his mind that something was going to happen, that Raph would get hurt or lost or k…
Everytime his brain went that road he'd slap his face and shake his head hard. Bad thoughts, Raph was strong! And he was not going alone! Dad was going with him to teach him. He'd be totally fine. They were going to go during the night which was darker and better to hide from any possible danger.
But then his thoughts would come back and all possible scenarios of the worst outcomes played on loop in his mind and even with Mikey and Donnie’s snoring to soothe him, he couldn’t close his eyes and sleep.
What if someone found them?
What if dad got hurt?
What if Raph got hurt?
Over and over those thoughts would circle in his mind until he heard shuffling from outside the room. Leo gulped but he was the one awake, he had to be brave and see. Mikey was still too small and Donnie… well Donnie wasn’t weak but Leo had to protect them because they were sleeping, nevermind that Donnie was the one in charge.
Leo made sure to not make noise as he slipped away from his brothers and tiptoed towards the door, his heart beating fast with each step. He raised his hands in tiny fists, unsure if that would be enough to fend off the intruder, until the light from outside made him realize it was his dad and Raph.
“Blue!” he heard the rat whisper-yell at him “what are you doing up?”
Leo’s eyes watered in relief. They were ok, Raph was ok and his dad was fine and ok he was looking at him upset but that didn’t matter because they were home and they were ok.
And yet, the next time they left for the topside, sleep eluded Leo one more time. He just couldn’t close his eyes and relax knowing something could happen.
So, for some nights a week, Leo wouldn’t sleep until he heard his dad and Raph come back, even if he ended the next day feeling sluggish and disoriented. Eventually they started going during the day, which still worried Leonardo but at least he wasn't losing sleep hours while waited.
It got worse when he and Donnie turned 10. Turning 10 meant they were old enough to try and venture to the topside and now that Raph was older too and with more experience, dad didn’t have to go with them anymore.
They took turns of course. One week it would be Leo and one Donnie, because they were not going to leave young Mikey alone, no way. But now it meant that on the days he stayed behind, he wouldn’t close his eyes until they were back. He would stay up with Mikey curled up on his side while he waited for both Raph and Donnie to be home.
His brain would go miles per hour in thoughts, in imagining all possible scenarios that could happen, keeping him tapping against the old mattress until he heard the familiar steps.
Things got even worse when Mikey turned 10 because now that they were older it meant they could have their own rooms. That and dad had mentioned that Raph was 12 and would be hitting something called puberty soon.
Something about letting them all have their own privacy, Leo didn’t quite get it.
The only thing he understood was that he was not going to have Mikey’s snores or Raph’s warmth or Donnie’s arms clinging to him when they all slept in a pile. No, from that moment on, Leo had his own room, with shelves that held his Jupiter Jim comics and the one figurine he had managed to snatch one trip time ago. He had his own space to mark as his own… and he hated it.
The silence was deafening, he had asked Donnie if that was possible and the soft shell said it was an oxymoron which left Leo in the same spot but it was. He hated it so much he couldn’t close his eyes to sleep.
But he didn’t want to look weak in front of his brothers. Not when Mikey, the youngest, was ecstatic to have his own space to paint to his heart’s desire, not when Donnie, his twin even if they didn’t look alike, was already setting up all his homemade devices and gadgets, not even when Raph was happy with the sense of responsibility of having to care of a space of his own.
So Leo sucked it up and bragged about how cool his room was and how he'd find the best posters and swallow the fears and anxieties his brain reproduced on loop.
Except that he'd end up sleeping half or less of what he was supposed to and he would end up tiptoeing out of his room and wandering to the kitchen where it was easier to find white noise to mute out his thoughts.
Some nights he'd get lucky, as mean as it sounded, because he'd hear Mikey whimper and he'd go right away to soothe his baby brother from a nightmare and of course he'd stay until Mikey fell back asleep.
But then Mikey was older and less scared and it brought Leo back to trying to quiet the thoughts by himself. He'd toss and turn and look at the ceiling while the words and fears festered in his brain.
When Leo turned 12 he learned what insomnia was. He discovered it because he had been caught by his dad on his midnight walks, except that Splinter didn't whisper-yell at him on that occasion. Instead he let Leo stay in the kitchen, with a mug of hot tea while his dad asked him how long he had had issues with sleeping.
After that Leo had to increase his training a little as a way to exhaust his body and took up meditation as a way to empty his mind.
It didn't work right away, it wasn't magic , but Leo did notice that he slept a little more.
And then he would find that Donnie also had nights without sleep. But in Donnie's case it was because the soft shell got into a new invention and wouldn't drop it until finished.
Leo might not understand why Donnie would ignore sleep for that but he did get when brains wouldn't turn off. So, when his insomnia showed up again and was on par with Donnie's invention frenzies, he would sneak into Donnie’s room and sit on one of his old beanbags and just observe.
At first he thought Donnie didn’t mind, until one night he turned and screamed at the sight of Leo looking at the ceiling of his room. His dad was mad at the both of them for waking the entire lair and then scolded Donnie for being up late working —Leo knew it was almost three in the morning, he had kept counting the minutes— and scolded Leo for scaring off his brother —but not for staying up, his dad knew, he was aware it was one of those weeks— and send them to sleep.
Leo apologized in the morning to Donnie who just frowned but relented to have Leo in his space as long as he didn’t interrupt because it was a complicated thing to work on and dangerous.
The slider didn’t dare to tell him he had been doing that for weeks, opting for meditating in the times Donnie was too focused on something to look at him.
When Leo turned 14 his insomnia had diminished considerably, but after the whole situation with Draxum and the arrival of oozequitoes and the mutants disturbing the New York life, his sleep habits went haywire again and worse.
By that point Raph was their designated leader because he was the oldest and Mikey was not as scared as he was when he was a kid, teenage years tend to do that. Plus Donnie had a new space he used as a laboratory for all his new gadgets and inventions so Leo had a new hiding spot when his sleep was messed up.
He still meditated, he still trained, did a lot of physical activities, but it just wasn’t enough. It was also when he was 14 that his brothers finally realized he suffered from insomnia.
Leo hadn’t intended for them to find out. And it wasn’t as if it was a secret, except that it kind of was because he didn’t want to appear as the weak link. He already felt that the more they went out on missions thank you very much.
No, they found out because Leo had a rough week of insomnia that showed in his eyes and the way his moves were getting sloppy and how he had almost fallen asleep while leaning on his odachi and sort of portalling himself on accident. He was very lucky the fall wasn’t that high and Raph was just there or he’d have ended up with a few injuries from it.
His lack of sleep got worse after he was thrown off a roof. Sure, Raph saved him and Leo was eternally grateful for that, but it only worked as fodder for his brain in supplying nightmares and thoughts he could just not stop.
What if it happened again?
What if next time Raph wasn’t there?
What if next time it was Mikey or Donnie?
Leo would toss and turn for hours until he gave up and walked to the kitchen. He liked tea, the one that didn’t have caffeine because Donnie told him if he reduced his consumption it’d help a little and hey, he was the clever one, why shouldn’t he trust him?
On the fifth night of restlessness he had stumbled upon Donnie waiting for him in the kitchen.
“Can’t sleep?”
“Nothing escapes your eyes, huh?” Leo smiled but held none of his usual mocking tone. He was too tired for that. He instead sat on his chair, surprised when the soft shell placed Leo’s favorite mug in front of him, the sweet scent of chamomile and honey easing him a little. So Donnie had been there before to prepare it? Leo was touched.
“Thanks D,” he smiled and took the cup, the warmth soothing in his hands.
“I looked up what to do in case of nightmares,” Donnie muttered after a while “you already have an established routine but reassurance is another way to help ease them up, talking about them, rewriting the ending, locating where the source of stress is that induces the nightmare scenario…”
Leo blinked again. He hadn’t mentioned a thing about his nightmares, but Donnie didn’t look at him, instead he kept his eyes fixed on the table, his fingers tapping a particular rhythm on the surface.
“Or, if you don’t want to talk about them, write them down—”
“I fall.”
The words slipped out of Leo’s mouth before he registered he had said them. He’d blame it on his lack of sleep, because he knew Donnie struggled with emotions. He loved Donatello, he really did, so to understand how the soft shell communicated his concerns was a must in Leo’s life.
Donnie relied on logic, on practical solutions. It eased him to hear that he had spent time researching something that affected Leonardo.
“Falling? As in fear of heights?”
“More like falling as the time Draxum threw me off a roof,” Leo shrugged. He sighed and described some of his latest nightmares, some of his recent thoughts that festered in his brain, his fears that they were going to become real at some point. He didn’t go that deep, a part of his brain still told him not to, but Donnie deserved to hear some of them, after all, he had stayed up late for Leo this time, or that’s what he wanted to believe.
And Donnie listened to each word, remained silent while he heard Leo’s fears. By the time he was finished, his tea was long gone and the warmth from the ceramic turned cool.
“So… yeah, thanks for listening, I know this isn’t your area of expertise.”
“Contrary to popular belief I do care about you” Donnie spoke at last “I may not be able to remove the nightmares, unless you’d be willing to try out—”
“No guinea pig on your brothers Dee,”
“Right, well,” Donnie frowned, “but I can tell you that if Raph were awake and here he’d say something along the lines of how he would always be there to catch you.”
Leo smiled, that did sound like something Raph would say.
“But also… I would catch you too, you know.”
Leonardo blinked.
“Thanks Donnie.”
Donnie stood up and walked towards the door, only to stop on the frame and turn back to Leo.
“Another way to help is to have reassurance,” Donnie said “so maybe you would like to have some company tonight? To see if you can ease your way to sleep again.”
“Are you suggesting a cuddle?”
“Take it or leave it, I’m not offering a second time.”
Leonardo smiled and trailed after him.
And just like before, it wasn’t magic. He still had nightmares, but eventually they faded out to once every week or two, then months without an event that would leave him tossing and turning. He’d still be up looking sometimes at his own ceiling but that one night offer from Donatello became two, then three, and soon he realized he spent most of his nights cuddled up to Donnie’s side. Or, in the cases where Don got carried away with a project, he’d find himself sleeping on Donnie’s bed instead, the keyboard noise a sort of background static that pulled away his thoughts. It was nice, soothing, like when he was younger and hated sleeping on his own.
But it wasn’t until way later than he came to the realization that there was more than platonic cuddling in it. And it had been a gradual thing, a slow moment of clarification in his mind that, at some point of his hectic life, he had fallen in love with Donatello.
When did that happen? Leo couldn’t tell for sure, but the realization of those feelings came to him one night when he had the soft shell mumbling nonsense in his sleep and his heart did a flip.
It was… unusual. But not something bad, just, out of the ordinary. Shell, he wasn’t ordinary, none of them were. Half experimentation-incident-now mutants. Was this weird? Probably.
Would he do something about it? He probably wouldn’t. One thing was his emotions, another one very different was what Donnie might even feel about him and the last thing Leo needed was to make things awkward between them.
So, he kept them to himself. Except that now he had a new list of thoughts that would haunt him from time to time.
What if Donnie finds out?
What if he hates you?
What if he finds you weird?
He’d end up looking at the ceiling for hours to end, the solution of almost two years before now a problem to his sleep deprivation. He didn’t want to stop but he felt guilty some nights by staying there, as if he were taking advantage of the closeness for something he couldn’t have.
It was a sort of horrible relief when Big Mama unleashed her plan to use New York as her new arena for the Battle Nexus and then to find that the Shredder was back.
Every thought about crushing on Donnie was pushed to the back of his mind while they dealt with that situation. But hey, they won! And things were getting better and then… and then dad announced that Leo was supposed to be the leader now and what was he supposed to do with that?
And to make things worse, the Kraang invasion happened.
Leonardo was 16 when his nightmares came back in full force.
He didn’t remember much during the time he was bound to the infirmary, healing from being used as a living punching bag by those bastards. He had brief images of his family, Casey included now, looming over him, making sure he was breathing, that he was healing.
When he was able to be conscious for more than a few minutes, he was never alone. There was always someone by his side, mostly Mikey or April that would talk endlessly to catch him up on things. Raph came by later on and Leo would never admit out loud that they had quite a tearful moment because Leo had almost lost Raph and yet he didn’t get that Raph, that everyone else had almost lost Leo in return.
Donnie wouldn’t visit that often at first, except to check that things were in order, and that Leo was taking his medication on time, but there was nothing else for a while and Leo’s thoughts were spiraling hard.
Was he upset?
Was Donnie angry?
Did Donnie hate him?
He didn’t dare to ask, he couldn’t, of course he was angry, of course the others might be mad at him. Leo had messed up badly and he was unable to go clean up the mess, bound to bed until new notice. As grateful as he was for the company of the others, the jab that Donnie refused to spend time in the same room as he was painful.
Until one day that he was accompanied by his dad while teaching him how to play chess —because board games were becoming Leo’s thing with the amount of time he was in bed— that Donatello made an appearance in the medbay and Splinter just gave them both a nod before leaving the room.
“Oh, hey Don—”
“You are an idiot.”
Oh, well, he had it coming. Here he was, the confirmation that Leo was dreading to have.
“So I’ve been told.”
“No, I mean, agh!” Donnie took three long strides to Leo’s side and took the vacant chair “you just… what were you thinking?”
“I—”
“No, don’t answer that, I know what you were thinking, damn it Nardo, we don’t need two self-sacrificing idiots in the family!”
“W—”
“I thought, I thought I was never going to see you again!” Donnie kept rambling at him “and had Mikey not… and then you were back but we almost lost you again—”
Oh, Leo remembered that, well, what they had told him. He had been legally dead for a moment. Miracles of science he’d say had Donnie been in a better state.
“I’m sorry—”
“No,” Donnie looked at him and Leo held back a gasp because Donnie’s eyes were glassy, he was holding back tears “you don’t get to apologize for this, it wasn’t your fault that…that you got that hurt.”
“I…but because I messed up…”
Donatello held his good hand and squeezed it so tight Leo almost winced.
“But you owned up and did the right thing, even if the right thing sucks and please, don’t ever do something like that again, I… I don’t want to lose you.”
Oh. Leo understood a little better. Donnie was mad, but not at him, at least not directly. And at least he didn’t hate him.
“I’ll… keep that in mind.”
After that, Donnie was accompanying him more often. Even when he was finally released to his room, Donnie would be around. He got into chess as well and they’d play, with Donatello legitimately surprised that Leo was really good at it.
But it was just like that, his nightmares began again. Dreams of being back in that hell of a place, of Raph hovering above him with his shell pierced, of Mikey and Donnie held captive by the Kraang, of Raph fighting and killing him. Of the Kraang killing him, of falling endlessly with no one nearby to help him.
He always died in his nightmares.
He always woke up drenched in sweat and throat hoarse, unaware that he had been screaming, only to feel someone holding onto his hand, reassuring him in distant voices that he was alright, that no one was going to hurt him, that his family was safe, only for Leo to notice it was Donnie’s voice.
It took Leo a long time to slowly move past those restless nights. He eventually did, and he got better, good enough to move around, to get back into training, to lead his team that had waited for him without remorse.
And just when things were getting back to a good place, Leo’s brain remembered that oh yeah, he was in love with Donnie.
Donnie who still jabbed at him with his dry sense of humor, who played chess with him on the quiet days and would still give him chamomile tea with honey on the stressful nights. Donnie who still gave him fight in their competitions and beat records to get back at Leo and who listened to Leo's planning and followed his strategies because he trusted him.
So of course those thoughts would come back and nag at him because that's what Leo's brain did.
He was 17 when Donnie was the one who surprised him, after a round of patrolling around the city, while Leo looked at the night sky and thought how lucky he was to still be able to see it and his home and family.
"I love you."
Had Leonardo been any farther he'd have missed out those words. But he didn't, he heard them, clear as the night sky above them.
"Aw Dee," he tried to play it off, "you know I love you too."
He didn't want to raise his hopes up. He didn't want to imagine and be heartbroken.
But Donnie was looking at him with an intensity that backed up the intention behind his words. Leo could see it in his eyes, the fear, the hesitance that he'd be rejected because while they were not like any other in the city, who's to say they'd say something?
"Leo—"
"I love you too," he replied, with no jab, no light hearted tone in his voice. He said it with all the honesty he could muster, with all the hope that he hadn't read it wrong.
And Donnie, Donnie looked at him, analyzed his face just to be sure Leo wasn't mocking him, but Leo decided to be brave again and reach out for Donnie's hand. An invitation for the soft shell to take it.
And when he did, Leo felt his heart leap in his chest out of joy.
His rounds of insomnia didn't disappear though. They'd bounce back every now and then. When he got nervous over his family rejecting their relationship —they didn't, the jerks were doing bets under the table the entire time—or if there was a difficult mutant situation, plus the fear the Kraang would find a way out and attack again, those nights Leo stared at the ceiling, just like years ago, but now Donnie would be snuggled by his side, arms and legs wrapped around him in a warmth Leo needed.
He sighed one of those nights, sleep refusing to come even after working himself out to the bone. It was then that he noticed stirring by his side.
“Sorry,” Leo mumbled, his voice just a little above a whisper “I didn’t want to wake you.”
“I don’t mind,” Donnie mumbled, his face hidden in the crook of Leo’s neck “I worry about you.”
"It's been years."
"So?" Donnie flicked his forehead "was it a nightmare?"
Leo bit his tongue and hugged him closer.
"No, I haven't got to sleep yet."
A beat of silence, then he felt a nod.
"Do you want to go get some tea?"
Leo shook his head. It was warm, he didn't want to get away from that warmth.
"I'd rather stay here" he mumbled "you could try to lull me to sleep by talking about thermodynamics."
"Gasp, are you implying they're boring?"
"I do not confirm nor deny anything" Leo laughed, earning another flick on the snout.
"Fine then, just this once."
Leonardo smiled.
“I love you,”
“I love you too Nardo” Donnie said “now close your eyes.”
He did what Donnie said, closing his eyes and sighing at the warmth Donnie brought in their embrace, the rumble of his voice a soothing feeling in his heart until his mind wandered off into white noise and warmth.
It was one of the best sleep nights he’d ever had.